"Residents and the place branding process: socio-spatial construction of a locked-down city’s brand identity"
New article authored by MMTC members Adele Berndt
Opens in new window. and Mart Ots Opens in new window., together with MMTC affiliate and alumni Songming Feng Opens in new window.
The recently published paper "Residents and the place branding process: socio-spatial construction of a locked-down city’s brand identity" authored by MMTC members Adele Berndt and Mart Ots, together with MMTC affiliate and alumni Songming Feng, builds on Kavaratzis and Hatch’s (2013) identity-based place branding model and aims to explore the spatial and social dimensions of the place brand identity formation process and how residents used social media to participate in the process of shaping a city brand during a crisis.
This study develops an adapted conceptual model of place identity formation unfolding in four sub-processes: expressing, impressing, mirroring and reflecting, and each sub-process subsumes two dimensions: the social and the spatial. In addition, this study empirically describes how residents participated in place branding processes in two ways, namely, their construction of city brand identity via communicative practice and their exertion of changes to a city brand during a crisis. The model reveals how place brands emerge and can be transformed.
Songming Feng, Adele Berndt, and Mart Ots
